Creative Inquiry Forums | Michael Gray | Activity https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/members/michael-gray/activity/ Activity feed for Michael Gray. Tue, 14 Apr 2026 18:15:35 -0700 https://buddypress.org/?v= en-US 30 hourly 2 40ae601003fc4aaa6d11531fa9de2e4d Michael Gray started the topic Time beyond Stories in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/time-beyond-stories/ Mon, 22 Dec 2025 20:02:16 -0800 “How you engage and appreciate time shapes the way you narrate your life.”  “Gesture of Great Love” by Tarthang Tulku.

Living as I do, inside the story that time is a sequence of fleeting present moments—each one wedged between an inaccessible past on one side and a future that never shows up on the other—I have to wonder if there is a greater ti…Read more

]]> 03a444a7a041f9196d8ced890faaae92 Michael Gray replied to the topic The Elusiveness of Feeling in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/the-elusiveness-of-feeling/#post-1255 Fri, 14 Nov 2025 14:58:12 -0800 Hayward Questions

Michael,

I struggled with your blog as I had a different take on the issues.
In the sentence “I am sad“, I thought sad was an adjective
It seems that as such “sad” can erroneously be “identity” describing how or what “I am”.
If, however, we add ness we get sadness. Ness added to any word (I thought) meant “the quality of“.

So…Read more

]]> 30cac4cfc299917a46c495630244febc Michael Gray started the topic The Elusiveness of Feeling in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/the-elusiveness-of-feeling/ Sun, 09 Nov 2025 14:52:02 -0800 If you’re like me, you’re never entirely sure how much your feelings and perceptions reflect the circumstances in which you find yourself and how much of your experience is dictated by the moods and expectations you bring with you into that situation.

I’m presently reading a chapter in a book (Keys of Knowledge, by Tarthang Tulku) that is explo…Read more

]]> eb540d48c53d2776794978f121cdd5c4 Michael Gray started the topic One Word, Many Meanings in the forum Time Space Knowledge https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/one-word-many-meanings/ Tue, 27 May 2025 14:49:33 -0700

Image by Toby Parsons from Pixabay:  https://pixabay.com/photos/passing-place-sign-place-pass-2975664/

 

We speak of the future as if we know what we mean; most often envisioning a place where events wait until they “come to pass”. That entails passing through the present and quickly disappearing into the past. Appearance in the pres…Read more

]]> 3bb282c621284845c5575e43028ea7aa Michael Gray started the topic Living in Time in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/living-in-time/ Sun, 23 Mar 2025 21:22:05 -0700 We may have noticed that we only experience what is already past, since it takes time for sensations and perceptions to be recognized, identified and assigned their places in our inner map of the world. When it comes to the larger cosmos, there’s an even larger discrepancy between our view of distant galaxies, whose light has taken billions of y…Read more

]]> 2807cfc26b562c835bf9b2b62d3168c1 Michael Gray started the topic Strong Feelings in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/strong-feelings/ Tue, 21 Jan 2025 14:55:35 -0800 My emotions have undergone a process of dilution similar to the hot water and milk I add to my cups of coffee, which let me drink them all day without getting caffeine-overload. Similarly, having less intense feelings helps me to feel more balanced; although I still sometimes fall into the sinkholes that surround certain images from the…Read more

]]> ad9c6069ee54c3a500b8963c7ca9f9ab Michael Gray started the topic Flying Leaves in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/flying-leaves/ Tue, 29 Oct 2024 17:23:23 -0700 It’s not just that I am stardust from an exploding supernova that cloaked our planet with a tapestry of living beings.

It’s not just the discovery of language and fire, and the gathering of our forebears into tribes, villages and cities.

It’s not just that I was born on this planet, recapitulating in the womb the evolutionary journey of our a…Read more

]]> 8c8967cab2337956f6993cd263ae0807 Michael Gray started the topic Moonlight at the Center in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/moonlight-at-the-center/ Sat, 03 Aug 2024 20:24:38 -0700 Whether we actually practice being at the center of our experience, or simply try to pay attention to our feelings and thoughts as they pass on by, we are probably hoping to be in touch with our own being. But when we use our thoughts to navigate, and use concepts and judgments as our oars, we soon find ourselves outside experience, looking…Read more

]]> 201981d1ef2ff9e0c71030ad31181e4a Michael Gray started the topic This Time Around in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/this-time-around/ Thu, 11 Apr 2024 21:36:22 -0700 I like to think that it’s possible to carry along what we have learned from previous explorations so that, as we shift into new ground and fresh interests, we can more effectively fathom each new situation. Behind this hope, lies another: that I will recollect what I originally wanted to learn in this lifetime.

I guess there is a tone of…Read more

]]> 669a635b2875db652afd103b53658f79 Michael Gray started the topic A Drop of Water in the forum Nature and the Environment https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/a-drop-of-water/ Fri, 29 Mar 2024 21:44:09 -0700 I have no memories of my own, because I have nowhere to store them, no heart or brain or library that could keep my experiences within reach. Yet by some miracle, I now remember that I’ve been a drop of water for millions of years. I even remember being broken up into constituent atoms and then, as soon as I was reassembled into a drop of water a…Read more

]]> 23ecbacc70d6c7b1c935ad36323e02a5 Michael Gray started the topic Synchronicity again in the forum Systems Thinking https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/synchronicity-again/ Thu, 21 Mar 2024 19:19:46 -0700 I wasn’t quite sure of the meaning of “synchronicity”, until I looked it up and read about events with no visible causal connection that seem to have meaningful relationships to each another. I knew of the word but had never used it to express my own thoughts; it was the title of a book I’d never opened.

In her book, “World as Lover, World as…Read more

]]> d8350b9e078cfc538fc43f9422e00c14 Michael Gray started the topic My Friend the Sun in the forum Nature and the Environment https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/my-friend-the-sun/ Wed, 28 Feb 2024 21:59:03 -0800 If I was a river, and I’m not saying I’m not, I would thread my way through all obstacles. Without them, I could not continue on my journey. In my heart, I’m still in Egypt, flowing over cobblestones, where a donkey is pulling a heavily-laden cart; before I am then once more caught up in a stream making its way back to the sea. That was a diffe…Read more

]]> a28ec5aac56ff864f25daa2c4764122a Michael Gray started the topic Into the Light in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/into-the-light/ Tue, 16 Jan 2024 15:25:47 -0800 The question on everyone’s lips is: “Did I run into the light or did the light run into me?”

This question takes different forms depending on our interests and orientations. For an astronomer or physicist, the predawn light has been streaming out into the solar system and beyond, in all directions and without a moment’s interruption, for four bi…Read more

]]> f213c599772ad192232ce8ca92034c7a Michael Gray started the topic Why Wait? in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/why-wait/ Sun, 07 Jan 2024 15:27:20 -0800 A friend who has a Christian perspective gave me a copy of a book that I have been reading. Very near the end now, I came upon a statement about three ways of viewing life and death:

“There are essentially three philosophies of man, three philosophies of life. Eastern mysticism, Western secularism, and Biblical theism. The first simply denies t…Read more

]]> 4e6beded1917803e083ae4e1de71b9f7 Michael Gray started the topic How Did I Get Here? in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/how-did-i-get-here/ Thu, 28 Dec 2023 14:54:48 -0800 Waves are lapping against the gunnels of a rowboat that isn’t familiar to me. I see that I’m a good mile out from the coast and that the waves have suddenly become higher, as if I must have moved out past the protection of a projection in the shoreline. Then, with something like a shock, I notice that there must be a leak in the bottom of this row…Read more

]]> b854a66458fb6d02c4708bef6092db22 Michael Gray started the topic A Deep Silence Beckons in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/a-deep-silence-beckons/ Wed, 13 Dec 2023 13:38:56 -0800 I’ve been deaf since birth but have been able to make my way in the world of the hearing well enough, with the help of braille, sign language, and the always improving technology for translating spoken speech into printed text.

Of course, I miss a lot and there are experiences I can only represent with analogies woven from the senses that r…Read more

]]> bdbcdd92541df8e172e70380189a16b1 Michael Gray started the topic Seasonal Milestones in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/seasonal-milestones/ Thu, 07 Dec 2023 15:09:50 -0800 Have you ever felt that you need to recognize that something important for your happiness has gone missing before your eyes, and that you must learn to grieve for that loss before you can reenter life as a wiser person? That’s what I am trying to work on these days. Surprisingly, this time it’s not a personal loss that has invoked this awa…Read more

]]> d2c22aa712c67b360f19ed0352a37fa2 Michael Gray started the topic A Path Forward in the forum Other (non-Buddhist) teachings by Tarthang Tulku https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/a-path-forward/ Tue, 21 Nov 2023 21:57:44 -0800 I think one of the most important questions for an individual living in these current times is whether we see a path forward for ourselves.

If the path we are following is that we continue doing what we have been doing, we may feel that this is our best way of protecting ourselves and our community from the kind of terrible losses we see playing…Read more

]]> 2e0880491ab3e4990c3cee34a548f78e Michael Gray started the topic The Little Engine in the forum Other (non-Buddhist) teachings by Tarthang Tulku https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/the-little-engine/ Sun, 12 Nov 2023 18:55:23 -0800 “Until now, I have not been treated well, not by myself and not by the circumstances and conditions I have chosen to accept as real.” Caring, page 196

This sentence jumped out at me this morning. Or rather, something in how I was listening took a step closer, as when a phrase at a nearby table catches our attention and our ears “perk up”. Probabl…Read more

]]> b3d4095fa18b41d1fdf1b4056473d853 Michael Gray started the topic Rivers I have known in the forum Other (non-Buddhist) teachings by Tarthang Tulku https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/rivers-i-have-known/ Sun, 29 Oct 2023 23:27:22 -0700 “We care about the lakes and the mountains and the sky, for we know that they are our progenitors.” Caring, page 150.

This unfamiliar perception caught me by surprise, when I recognized a seldom-honored truth in my life. I’ve been aware that times and places from my earlier life regularly replay in my mind–as if they are permanent resid…Read more

]]> 4e54b2384d216de93995c5f05ea21e9a Michael Gray started the topic Me and my Wall. in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/me-and-my-wall/ Wed, 20 Sep 2023 13:30:49 -0700 Am I standing or floating in the stream of time?

“We do not let satisfaction be a reality. We try to achieve it in the future, to capture it and tie it down, making it a ‘present’. Under such circumstances, we experience great tension and pressure.” Time, Space, and Knowledge, Page 128.

I look at the brick wall in front of me and realize that I…Read more

]]> 3e287c332b4eebd0ae174cdc4089abbe Michael Gray started the topic When Two or More Gather in the forum Other (non-Buddhist) teachings by Tarthang Tulku https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/when-two-or-more-gather/ Thu, 17 Aug 2023 22:14:46 -0700 I’m on the outside looking in when it comes to practicing any religious orthodoxy. I suppose I picked that up from my mother, who once told me—when I asked her why she didn’t come to church services on Sundays with my father, sister and me—that if she wanted to be in touch with her spiritual being she preferred to do it on her own.

One day I a…Read more

]]> 39f536b11682793653066ef770149fb5 Michael Gray started the topic “Good Greens” in the “Field of Space” in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/good-greens-in-the-field-of-space/ Sun, 25 Jun 2023 22:11:30 -0700 While pondering how everything arises “together” in space, I was reminded of a poem I wrote while I was still living in Canada, which was published in “Wascana Review”:

Good Greens

Brown streaks slash the rough grey boards;
the old barn creaks under the drumming wind.
A rusty barrel plangs once—takes 2 bars on the run—
and then shifts into…Read more

]]> c77c245c65214dcf50a0226d4f3bb8d3 Michael Gray started the topic Casting the First Brick in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/casting-the-first-brick/ Sat, 10 Jun 2023 13:52:20 -0700 “In the act of being curious, what has been settled becomes unsettled. There are no rules, no certainty, and no fixed place at which to arrive. We know that we do not know. We know that our cognition is inadequate, so we must continue.” Caring, Page 223.
Looking at the brick wall in front of where I am sitting, I see a wall that was once the out…Read more

]]> e93aad61d085aa8d74dd0451ed275fef Michael Gray started the topic Stations along the Way in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/stations-along-the-way/ Fri, 19 May 2023 20:56:26 -0700 This morning I read a few sentences about the body’s “energy centers” (also called the “chakras”), which line up along the front of the body like stations on a train line: head, throat, heart and belly).  As often happens when I’m reading something that I can’t readily absorb or make sense of, I was swept away on an imaginary journey.  In t…Read more

]]> ba3f4e1fa2a93f02abc87eebc29ffeeb Michael Gray started the topic Let me Count the Ways in the forum Time Space Knowledge https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/let-me-count-the-ways/ Thu, 09 Feb 2023 13:51:27 -0800 Let me count the ways in which the world eludes enumeration and understanding. Trying to hold a steady image feels like peering into a facet of a crystal spinning in a window. In one sense, I can see in several directions at once and therefore glimpse more than what lies directly in front of me. In another sense, everything is scattered so that…Read more

]]> 734bab6ec2c98fcc5b0e4df984c82f4d Michael Gray started the topic Knowledge of Freedom in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/knowledge-of-freedom/ Mon, 09 Jan 2023 20:40:30 -0800

Image: ‘Knowing Freedom’ by Public Co – Pixabay  https://pixabay.com/photos/ocean-sunset-person-silhouette-2203720/

 

“We may notice changes in ourselves, our children, and in people around us, but the deeper meaning of these changes escapes us.”—Knowledge of Freedom: Time to Change,  by Tarthang Tulku.

The Four Freedoms are enshrined i…Read more

]]> 33a79df9ef336ad4722e717fc44641c9 Michael Gray started the topic All the Math we Need to Know in the forum Time Space Knowledge https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/all-the-math-we-need-to-know/ Sun, 01 Jan 2023 19:58:24 -0800

-Zero Point-  Lonnie Christopher Art  https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=726136728880649&set=a.208680153959645

 

Don’t we all sometimes look in a direction that is not a point on any compass?  Don’t we keep drawing the measure of a presence that only incidentally wears assigned locations and identities; and then try to hold onto experi…Read more

]]> 8fe808549c66260f502135bc81dd58b4 Michael Gray replied to the topic Signing up for the Future in the forum Time Space Knowledge https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/signing-up-for-the-future/#post-1104 Mon, 21 Nov 2022 20:53:10 -0800 As I get older, I hear my peers lamenting their loss of memory. I’ve so far resisted that lament, even though I am aware of comparable losses. I persist in my belief that whatever remains is always the heart of being human. Perhaps I am fooling myself and accepting a self-serving view of reality: it must be real because every time I check it’s…Read more

]]> c8cce0fab651c776747a50d025af5e9f Michael Gray started the topic Signing up for the Future in the forum Time Space Knowledge https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/signing-up-for-the-future/ Mon, 21 Nov 2022 15:55:10 -0800

Image:  ‘Signing Up For the ‘Future’, by Gerd Altmann – Pixabay   https://pixabay.com/photos/future-letters-construction-site-3274954/

 

The words were emblazoned on a banner strung between two buildings bordering the plaza. The letters were as tall as giraffes and the dot on the “i” was the size of a pie plate:

“Sign up for the futu…Read more

]]> 6afc87445094c6b04ca016fd6ace3c20 Michael Gray replied to the topic Remembering Forward in the forum Body, Dance and Movement https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/remembering-forward/#post-1098 Tue, 15 Nov 2022 17:28:40 -0800 A word of explication:

This piece is fiction, in that it is imagined and not an experience that caught me up in a different all-enveloping ‘reality”. But, not for the first time, I felt that I was exploring a possibility that is at least as real as when I am repeating old patterns without being aware that I am running on automatic.

I can ide…Read more

]]> 2bc3d7ba6f6cbd7d85c3d34c6eeb15cc Michael Gray started the topic Remembering Forward in the forum Body, Dance and Movement https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/remembering-forward/ Sun, 13 Nov 2022 21:48:10 -0800

Mulberry Branch by Debra, Mountain Home AR – Flickr  https://www.flickr.com/photos/debcll/4809825459/in/photostream/

 

The Air is so Still

All morning, I could hear light rain rapping against the sunroom roof, tapping out a rhythm to accompany the melody of a windchime.  It’s been a gloomy day out there, made warm inside thanks to an osc…Read more

]]> b34967aa0000878e2687ca64b18676d3 Michael Gray started the topic Is Silence the Answer? in the forum Time Space Knowledge https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/is-silence-the-answer/ Sun, 18 Sep 2022 20:44:06 -0700

‘Silence’ – Image by Zlatan – Pixabay  https://pixabay.com/photos/blue-heaven-sun-summer-blue-sky-1588370/

 

Silence doesn’t echo itself. It doesn’t create copies of itself. Silence waits for us to slow down enough that we can hear the deep reverberation of all that is waiting to be heard and appreciated.

Life, in the early days of t…Read more

]]> 4446b6b024cb0ab903286f2b5edb0b1a Michael Gray started the topic Wending Which Way in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/wending-which-way/ Wed, 14 Sep 2022 14:11:13 -0700 The two lanes of traffic streaming past each other on roads and interstates seem unrelated to each other, except in the sense that some of those vehicles may return the way they came at a later time. But other two-way flows, especially those on which our very lives depend, are clearly fundamentally integrated circular movements.

An example of…Read more

]]> 43a209e0e41b4853ebe5eab71eb5bdd0 Michael Gray replied to the topic Unformulated Experience in the forum Time Space Knowledge https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/unformulated-experience/#post-1036 Sat, 13 Aug 2022 21:33:50 -0700 Great choice of the photo: “Dawn”.  I wonder how the ducks and the two swans experience that first light.  What does it feel like to be floating together on the water.  They seem so at ease.  In no hurry to be elsewhere.  They could teach a meditation class.  Or actually they are: a mere wingbeat away from a flight into the future.

]]> 281719664b20fdbd8ba7bca0ce8a8c95 Michael Gray started the topic Appreciation in the Midst of it All in the forum Poetry and Narrative Fiction https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/appreciation-in-the-midst-of-it-all/ Thu, 11 Aug 2022 02:17:00 -0700

Photo:  ‘Riding the Cascade of Light’ by 준원 서 – Pixabay   https://pixabay.com/photos/autumn-fall-leaf-leaves-tree-2805626/


“The real mystery is not somewhere else.
It’s right here in what we call reality, or truth, or daily life.
It’s in confusion and loneliness and boredom, and in the thoughts and concepts, and in all the insects, liz…

Read more

]]> 0c864a8a41ad2f208b8ed41c451410fa Michael Gray replied to the topic Unformulated Experience in the forum Time Space Knowledge https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/unformulated-experience/#post-1018 Thu, 11 Aug 2022 00:43:30 -0700 Hi David,

Thank you for the effort you have clearly put into exploring material in Sacred Dimensions that I have always found forbidding. Bringing to bear the parallel approach of Stern is very helpful. The concept of the “unformulated” lying behind the formulations we make and remember is somehow simpler, at least more familiar for me. I expect…Read more

]]> 76124cb7484c91ed11b2290ba7d85133 Michael Gray replied to the topic Tomorrow Finally Came in the forum Poetry and Narrative Fiction https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/tomorrow-finally-came/#post-1015 Wed, 10 Aug 2022 13:17:34 -0700 The question of whether this piece is based on personal experience is not one I can answer. It began as a spontaneously imagined flight of fancy–as a topic in a writing group that meets twice a month on Zoom, where we have 30 minutes or so to write on two topics. I was surprised that the group treated what I write as an exploration of my own…Read more

]]> 1e31a4be040540610656b3d553365960 Michael Gray started the topic Tomorrow Finally Came in the forum Poetry and Narrative Fiction https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/tomorrow-finally-came/ Wed, 10 Aug 2022 13:10:24 -0700

Photo: ‘The Whole Reflected In Each’ by Barbara A Lane – Pixabay  https://pixabay.com/illustrations/fractal-undersea-sea-underwater-2033916/

While I was living on Planet Earth, which was until quite recently, I never referred to ‘tomorrow’ as anything other than a period of time that has not yet arrived. When it did arrive, it would become…Read more

]]> 06c84d7edc2d50f4b87d6558f8975b9a Michael Gray started the topic A Circling Bird in the forum Time Space Knowledge https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/a-circling-bird/ Thu, 14 Jul 2022 12:31:23 -0700

Photo:  ‘Circling’ by Olivergun – Pixabay  https://pixabay.com/photos/darling-liberty-planet-bird-flight-1187774/

 

This morning, it feels like an idle boast to claim that I move backwards in time, as I claimed in my previous post. When I actually made an attempt to reverse the flow of time in memory, I realized just how deeply e…Read more

]]> ff8ab1a5b8dc4de79bfb2b1a4b19d789 Michael Gray started the topic Looking Forward to Something in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/looking-forward-to-something/ Mon, 20 Jun 2022 14:32:36 -0700

Photo: Edge of the Future, by AnnaER from Pixabay   https://pixabay.com/photos/sea-water-blue-sail-sailing-ship-195299/

I feel I move backwards into time. The future, unseen, is at my back and I can only see the past, rising up before me like a swarm of butterflies and hornets, fluttering and stinging through the memories that constitute…Read more

]]> 5f6fbee0f4049c37d30b02e427f5c255 Michael Gray started the topic Black Boxes I’ve Known in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/black-boxes-ive-known/ Wed, 01 Jun 2022 14:09:43 -0700
Photo: ‘Black Box’ by Xandra Luijks – Pixabay  https://pixabay.com/photos/box-out-of-the-box-black-open-755147/

“Our ‘knowing’ is fresh, sharp, and spontaneous.  It never needs to reduce the virgin quality of experience to something that is ‘known’, and therefore unworthy of closer attention and appreciation.”.  Time, Space and Knowledge

Read more

]]> de20350a85d591701399caab1778e072 Michael Gray replied to the topic CLEAR SEEING... in the forum Other (non-Buddhist) teachings by Tarthang Tulku https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/clear-seeing/#post-958 Tue, 24 May 2022 22:00:12 -0700 So many dimensions of how a restless mind prevents us from feeling at home on the edge: preventing us from going back to sleep when our rest has been interrupted; from noticing what is all around us because we paper it over with well-worn concepts; from the potential of life on the planet being corralled and curtailed in the momentums of…Read more

]]> 6d72d87caf35d732997230d2db2e3673 Michael Gray started the topic How to Write a Memoir in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/how-to-write-a-memoir/ Tue, 24 May 2022 16:13:53 -0700 Writing a memoir can be as simple as taking a stroll through the neighborhood, and is often undertaken for similar reasons: we’re looking for something to get ourselves out of the rut of our moods and agendas. There is actually not a lot of difference between a stroll and a memoir. But unfortunately, what we think to write about can feel like it i…Read more

]]> 45708896c3a9ebb3d213db5c8c4f6673 Michael Gray started the topic Destination Unknown in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/destination-unknown/ Sun, 01 May 2022 14:53:59 -0700

Photo: ‘Conducting Temporal Sameness’ by kie-ker – Pixabay    https://pixabay.com/photos/train-travel-seat-window-mirrors-1360740/

There is something about long journeys to new places; the memories always stay with us. As well as the Amtrak trips I have taken both east and west of Albuquerque, I remember a sojourn to western Canada on a on…Read more

]]> 56f35f4ffbe8ea8bfdbf2f24275c257c Michael Gray started the topic What am I Waiting For? in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/what-am-i-waiting-for/ Tue, 19 Apr 2022 11:38:26 -0700 I was lingering beside the job board, long after the rush of job seekers had moved on.  My eyes followed a man sweeping the concrete floor, as my mind wandered into memories of being at the Montreal Forum watching a Zamboni circling the rink. For those who didn’t grow up with hockey, a Zamboni is the machine that wipes up the ice shavings be…Read more

]]> 3e5a8db7ce8b141db2050dd13b4b16fc Michael Gray started the topic Walking with my Gestalt in the forum Standing Out in the Field https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/walking-with-my-gestalt-2/ Tue, 15 Mar 2022 22:15:03 -0700 Our dog, Red, waiting for her walk

Photo: Our dog, Red, waiting for her walk.

Walking With My Gestalt

Walking our dogs every day, I reacquaint myself with how badly-trained we both are.  I can’t blame the one I walk for the fact that I fell heavily on my face this week, hard enough that I scrapped my hands and knees and found my nose bleeding when I lifted my face off the si…Read more

]]> 07575e5b8820690237c66402467ec6b7 Michael Gray replied to the topic INITIAL SENSE IMPRESSIONS GIVE RISE TO SHAPE AND FORM in the forum Other (non-Buddhist) teachings by Tarthang Tulku https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/initial-sense-impressions-give-rise-to-shape-and-form/#post-937 Thu, 17 Feb 2022 22:39:51 -0800 This morning, working with TSK exercise 9 (mind, body, thought, emotion interaction while attending to the observer/participant), I wondereding what it would feel like to really enter into the space between each of these recognizable facits of my experience.  Then I wondered what it will be like to lose my body when I die.  Will there still be s…Read more

]]> 8dbf68424fd83bcdf058c80db2952053 Michael Gray started the topic A Brief History in the forum Poetry and Narrative Fiction https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/a-brief-history/ Mon, 31 Jan 2022 22:53:21 -0800 M showed up one day and didn’t know what he was doing there. Later it would be explained to him that birth for a human being was almost always like that, and that after a more or less protracted apprenticeship to his new situation, he would learn his way enough to get by.

And to a certain extent, he did. But, apprenticing alongside others of h…Read more

]]> 79ed6cd1530b1fab0c4d7062208a83e4 Michael Gray replied to the topic A PERSONAL REFLECTION... in the forum Time Space Knowledge https://discussions.creativeinquiry.org/forums/topic/a-personal-reflection/#post-893 Sat, 15 Jan 2022 14:38:21 -0800 I too have found that each of the ways Rinpoche has shared, in his many series of books, for develoing our appreciation and embodiment of the potential of our lives, reflect each other.  So goingt more deeply into one will enrich our appreciation for the others.  I find that lived life is one of those reflecting facets; what we leave room for in o…Read more

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